1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to enterprise computer systems, computer networks, embedded computer systems, wireless devices such as cell phones, computer systems, computers, and more particularly with methods, systems and procedures (i.e., computer readable media, software or programming configured to be read and/or executed by a processor on an electronic device described or depicted herein) for providing high-availability, virtualization and checkpointing services for a computer application(s) running on MICROSOFT WINDOWS® Operating Systems (herein referred to as WINDOWS® or MICROSOFT WINDOWS®.
2. Description of Related Art
Enterprise and wireless systems operating today are subject to continuous program execution that is 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. There is no longer the concept of “overnight” or “planned downtime”. All programs and data must be available at any point during the day and night. Any outages or deteriorated service can result in loss of revenue as customers simply take their business elsewhere, and the enterprise stops to function on a global scale. Traditionally, achieving extremely high degrees of availability has been accomplished with customized applications running on custom hardware, all of which is expensive and proprietary. Traditionally, no mechanisms have existed for protecting WINDOWS® applications. The problem is compounded by the fact that MICROSOFT WINDOWS® is a closed operating system without access to source code, so all high availability must be provided external to the operating system.
One reference provides a background for understanding aspects of the current invention. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/213,678 filed on Aug. 26, 2005, incorporated in its entirety, which describes how to provide transparent and automatic high availability for applications.